Agree 100%, though I did kind of skip the high-end point-and-shoots.
I used several low-end ones for a lot of years... including my last one, a Vivitar Vivicam 3675. It was quite craptacular -- not for its capabilities as an image capturing device, but because it drained batteries like nobody's business and had several annoying quirks to it (like not actually storing pictures and fun stuff of that nature). I could work around the issues and get some OK pics if I took my time with it... but you don't know how many times I wanted to throw that thing out the fucking window after I'd set up a shot, get it, only to find out I didn't get it.
I also regularly used my mom's Fuji point-and-shoot, which was better than my Vivi-POS (at least, it was more consistently operational)... but still quite limited. I shot at the Grand Prix with it one year (from the grandstand at turn 6), and while most of the night shots were horrible, some of the daytime ones came out great. Call it user error, I guess. More of the night shots would have been usable if not for the damn AF locking onto the fencing instead of the cars.
Having grown sick of the Vivi POS, I was thinking about getting something a bit nicer. Around the same time, I took my best friend to an Astros game, and he brought along his 10D and 70-200 IS lens (oh yeah -- event/wedding photography is his side business). He put the 10D in Sports mode, turned IS on, handed it over, and said "go nuts".
I sat up there (upper deck) picking off pictures of everything I could. I was timing shots with the delivery of the ball to home plate, and having a blast. What an unbelievable toy! That cemented it, I had to have a better camera. I started looking at the higher-end Canon point-and-shoots (A520, A620), and asked my friend's advice on the subject. He showed me what I did with the 10D and flat-out told me.... good luck getting shots like these with a point-and-shoot.
So I saved up my beans and bought the XTi and 17-85 IS lens... and I have tons of fun with it. I don't go out hunting for pics with it, and really don't mark anything down for "photography" on my calendar, either. Maybe the occasional shoot of a friend's car... that's about it. Most of my stuff is "Hey, I'm going to be somewhere cool. Might as well take the camera!" And that's how I like it.
I guess that makes me more of a picture-taker than a photographer, but that's OK with me. It is just something I do for fun.
But it does get annoying when people see my pics and ask "what kind of camera took that?"
The one that was under my right index finger, fool!
